Some of you might remember around this time last year (by that, I mean prime tennis season), how I had some complaints about tennis coverage on TV and the Internet. Well, to the surprise of nobody, the issue is the same this year.

And I just can’t fucking wrap my head around it. Yesterday, ESPN2 showed both of the women’s semifinals. Which is great. I love Schiavone, and while I’d love for Sharapova to come back, Na Li is the first Chinese person, man or woman, to make it to the finals at Roland Garros (French Open). But not one of the top four seeds made it to those semifinals for the women.

So this morning, Significant Other and I got up, wanting to watch the Nadal/Murray semifinal. On the men’s side, all four of the top seeds have made it to the semifinals, which is the first time it’s happened in twenty years or something.

But are any channels showing it? OF FUCKING COURSE NOT. Oh, the Tennis Channel is showing it, which you need to pay a ridiculous amount of money to get with your cable, because it’s a special channel. But NBC is TOTALLY going to show the NEXT semifinal between Djokovic and Federer.

FUCK EVERYONE. How are you going to show ONE of the semifinals, but not the other? Really? And, while Djokovic is certainly having the season of his life right now, and has the chance to take the World #1 ranking from Nadal if he wins against Federer, the point still stands that Nadal is currently the World #1 AND is the #1 seed at Roland Garros. And you’re really not going to fucking show his semifinal live on an accessible TV channel in the US? Are you fucking kidding me? But you’ll show both the women’s semifinals, when NONE OF THE TOP FOUR SEEDS MADE IT.

I just…I cannot fathom the logic behind this decision. Who the fuck makes these scheduling decisions, seriously? Are they on drugs? Hallucinatory drugs that don’t allow them to make logical decisions? While I tend to like women’s tennis more, only because it generally takes more strategy than hard hitting to win (which is true of most women’s sports), and Schiavone plays amazing clay court tennis, I’m pretty sure everyone knows that men’s tennis is more popular. I’m pretty sure most people, even if they’re not really into tennis, could name 2-3 men’s tennis players. I think people could probably name the Williams sisters on the women’s side, but right now I don’t think they’re even ranked in the top 10 (both have been out due to injuries), so to me that hardly counts.

So excuse me if I’m a little enraged that I can’t watch the world men’s #1 tennis player play some fucking tennis on TV. I even got up early to watch it. And not only is Nadal #1, he’s also one of the greatest, if not the greatest, clay court player of all time. AND WE’RE NOT GOING TO SHOW THIS ON TV, REALLY, UNITED STATES? Unless I pay a lot of money to have the tennis channel year-round when I SHOULDN’T NEED IT. You don’t need a special channel to watch football or basketball or baseball or even fucking golf. GOLF. Why the fuck should I need a special channel to watch tennis? Maybe it’s not as popular as football, but let me tell you that’s it’s more fucking popular than people think. The US Open tickets sell out ridiculously quickly. There are plenty of fucking tennis fans in the US. But we’re expected to pay extra to get a special channel to watch ONE OF THE FOUR MAJOR TOURNAMENTS. This isn’t some backwoods tournament that nobody knows about. It’s one of the GRAND SLAMS. It’s the only major played on CLAY. And I can’t fucking watch the SEMIFINALS on TV. SEMIFINALS ARE A PRETTY FUCKING MAJOR ROUND. It’s not like it’s the 1st round, where people generally breeze through or get crushed.

I just…I’m so enraged, I had to post about it. Poor SO is sick of hearing all my expletives as I rage about this aloud, but I just think it’s ridiculous.

And Roland Garros’ website only offers radio coverage for streaming (I shit you not. Am I in the Dark Ages?). I suppose it’s better than nothing.

But US TV coverage can suck it, because I found a place online to stream for free. SUCK ON THAT, ASSHOLES.

ETA: Argh, I just lost the live video stream I had. NOW I CAN ONLY LISTEN TO THE RADIO COVERAGE. I can’t…I can’t even believe that’s my only option.

Have you ever just had one of those fucking weeks? Where nothing seems to go right and everyone demands your attention at the same time and it’s just one damned thing after another, and the week isn’t even fucking over yet, what the hell?

That is the kind of week I’m having.

And then have you ever had someone try to tell you, when you talk to them about your shitty week, that you just need to think more positively and look on the bright side and life will be so much better! All it takes is a positive attitude!

Yeah, I had that happen, too.

It’s like the perfect fucking rage-inducing storm, right here. Some of you might have noticed me tweet, “I feel like I could stab everyone in the entire world right now, if that were possible.” It’s true. Sorry, friends, but in my fucking blind rage, I would not be able to distinguish between friend and asshole. It’s best to just stay away from me in these moments. When my rage meter is near the top, along with my patience wearing thin and people providing exactly the wrong advice, everyone near me better just find a bomb shelter, because I will explode, and my fury will not discriminate.

Because I think we can all agree that pretty much the worst thing you can say to someone who’s having a bad week is “Just think positively!” As if that’s some fucking magic cure to everything. Breaking news: It isn’t. Sometimes bad things happen, sometimes a lot of them happen at once, and I’m allowed to be fucking annoyed about it. Because I’m not saying good things NEVER HAPPEN. I’m just saying that right now, today or this week or just this moment, a lot of bad things have been happening and I’m fucking pissed. Don’t try and make me feel like it’s WRONG to feel that way. I know things are going to get better, or that good things happened in between the bad things. When I want to fucking pretend I’m floating on a rainbow, I’ll think about those positive things. But now is not that time.

And let’s face it: if just having a positive attitude were that easy, and could fix everything, nobody would have any problems. There would be no depression or drama, because everything could be solved with a smile and a shrug. But that doesn’t fucking sound like reality, does it? Because it isn’t. General positivity may help, but it isn’t a fucking solution to anything. And some people’s brain chemistry works against them, too, so trying to just tell someone to think positively is about as helpful and offensive as telling someone to pull themselves up by their bootstraps! Like they have to try harder at life or something. Look, I may get angry a lot at the fucking annoying things people do, but I recognize that everyone is allowed to live their life as they want* and that I can’t expect people, especially people I don’t know, to live up to my standards. But telling someone to just think positively has an implication that they aren’t already doing so or aren’t doing so to your satisfaction. Even if you don’t mean it that way and think it’s actually good advice. Can we just fucking agree that if you read this blog, you’ll never tell someone to “just think positively!” again? Trust me, it’s never what someone wants, or even needs, to hear.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I would like to add a little anecdote here that just happened to me and sort of exemplifies the week I’ve been having:

My sister called me last night as I was getting ready for bed and told me she had a document she needed to read that my mom’s computer would not open. She wanted to e-mail this document to me so I could read it for her. I told her I could do it the next day, as my computer was already shut down. Out of curiosity, I asked her what type of document it was. I figured it was something that required a special program and that was why my mom’s computer couldn’t open it.

My sister told me it was a Word document. I was baffled, because my mom has a PC that at least has notepad on it or something. But it’s old and slow, so for some reason it’s just having a problem with the file. Whatever.

Anyway, I got up this morning, did some work, and around 11 my sister e-mailed me the file. I opened it and read it, then pasted what the file said into an e-mail that I sent to her so SHE could read it, too. I texted her once I did this so she knew to check her e-mail. Her reply to me was, no lie: “Mom wants you to read what the letter says to me over the phone.”

…

I’m sorry, have I been transported to the fucking dark ages or something? This is a digital document that was sent via e-mail that I am now supposed to read over the phone to someone? I can’t be the only one who finds that ridiculous. Plus, I’m fucking busy with work. I don’t have the time for that, and my sister doesn’t need the information right this second; it’s not something that is going to change her life this very moment. So I texted her back and said I’ll also send the e-mail to mom, but that to tell her I don’t have the time right now to read it over the phone.

I also told her that it’s time for mom to get a new computer and cable internet (she has dial up right now, which…what is even the point of that anymore?).

But that pretty much sums up my week: people making ridiculous requests for my time when I have other, more important things to do and then getting annoyed when I can’t cater to their ridiculous desires. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Yeah, not to me.

So I think my desire to stab everyone all at once is understandable. Luckily it’s impossible, so you all can sleep soundly tonight.

______*I don’t want to get into the semantics here, about how someone living life the way they want may interfere with the way someone else wants to live their life (extreme example: someone wants to murder another person, but that other person doesn’t want to be murdered!). I just mean in the general sense, and within the rules of the society in which the person lives. So if someone wants to act like a fucking asshole all the time, as long as it’s not illegal, it’s their right even if annoys me when we’re sharing the same public space. They are able to do those jackass things, just as I am allowed to come home and blog about them.

What-if we lived in a-world where people knew-how-to use hyphens-correctly? Can you-imagine how fucking-wonderful-that-world-would be? I can-barely-contain-my-excitement-at-the-thought.

Okay, I think I killed too many brain cells doing that.

One of my pet peeves related to grammar is hyphen usage, or the complete general ignorance of how to use hyphens correctly. I give a certain amount of leeway when it comes to these things on the Internet. The Internet is universal, so you can’t expect everyone to know every nuance of every language. So if I see a poor, abused hyphen, I’ll just cringe and move on. Frankly, even though I’m a copy editor for a living, I HATE when people have to comment on someone’s blog or another comment correcting someone’s grammar or spelling. FUCKING LET IT GO. Breaking news: In a casual setting like the Internet, it’s a fruitless argument. Sure, some people are impossible to understand because of the grievous mistakes they make, but trust me, it’s better that way. And odds are they won’t appreciate your nitpicking and you won’t educate them or change their minds. It will just turn into a flame war. LET IT GO. I do, even though some mistakes I see are just laughable.

But when it comes to my job, or business e-mails, I cannot STAND misused hyphens. What did the hyphens ever do to these people? Why do they have to be tortured like this and randomly stuck between words where they don’t belong or left out when they’re needed? PLEASE BE GENTLE WITH THEM. THEY’RE JUST TINY BITS OF PUNCTUATION. THEY CANNOT DEFEND THEMSELVES.

Now, I will admit that the rules of hyphen use are some of the most ambiguous around. But by utilizing a dictionary and a style guide, you really cannot go wrong. Some words always have hyphens in them, such as jump-start. Some words will only have hyphens when they are jointly modifying another word, like slow-witted employee. The general rule is that they should be used to avoid confusion or ambiguity. Now that can mean different things for different people. But it’s still not a hard rule to follow. While I might find the term sea-surface temperature to be ambiguous and thus need a hyphen, others might think sans hyphen—sea surface temperature—is just fine. Its presence or absence is not bothersome there. I’m talking about examples like in my opening paragraph, where the hyphens are serving no purpose and are extraordinarily annoying. STOP HARASSING MY EYES WITH UNNECESSARY HYPHENS, ASSHOLES.

For-example, you never need-a hyphen in a sentence-like-this-one. Ugh, typing that made me nauseous. I mean…I feel like anyone with even a most BASIC grasp of the English language—and this means everyone for whom it is a first language—should see why that first sentence is just vile, and it’s all because people insist on abusing the poor hyphens. If you’re not sure if a hyphen is appropriate, USE A FUCKING DICTIONARY. Sometimes they do belong in odd places (like jump-start; most people write it as one word). And there are some times you NEVER need them. You should never use them on an adverb that ends in -ly. So “perfectly laid plan” does not ever need a hyphen. STEP BACK. I SEE YOU EYEING IT. PUT THE HYPHEN DOWN.

But a little research on this can take you a long way. Most people don’t give two shits about their communication skills to even care; hell, if people can’t be bothered to type “you” instead of “u” (barf), I guess I can’t expect them to care about hyphens. But, frankly, I’d rather they NOT BE USED than be overused in the way that they often are. It verges on a felony, the way they’re abused.

I won’t get into all the time/reasons/places to use or not use hyphens, because this isn’t a copy editing blog. I’m just saying, if you have even one brain cell left, please put it to work learning how to use hyphens.

And don’t Even get me Started on random Capitalization of words. ARGH. I have to go lie down before my brain explodes.

I’ve always been a fan of George Carlin, which should be a surprise to exactly zero people. I never got to see him live, and I haven’t seen all his specials or anything, but I like his comedy and I think he makes a lot of valid points.

So last week, Significant Other and I sat down with our instant Netflix and decided to watch one of his specials, George Carlin: It’s Bad For Ya. I don’t know why I never thought of it earlier, but as we were watching this special, I realized that George Carlin was the original anger ball.

Now, I’m not trying to claim to be as funny or as insightful as he was. I’m just saying that he is like my forefather in this endeavor to use logic to point out the bullshit that runs rampant in society.

It was during this bit that I had the realization, although it’s really the whole special that led to the light bulb going off in my head:

I think this pretty much sums up how I feel about people. It’s not just that they’re boring. It’s the stupid bullshit that gets overwhelming. But instead of just putting up with it or buying into it, I decided to start this blog to vent my frustration.

And of course we all know how I feel about Special Snowflakes. I think that’s essentially what this bit was getting at near the end with the “you’re the last winner!” bullshit.

I think that’s the correct count, anyway, including today. I’ve lost track (whoops).

I had a sneaking suspicion that Tuesday was taking up Wednesday’s gauntlet, because the past few weeks Wednesday has been oddly easygoing whereas Tuesday has been attempting to kick my ass. But today has thrown me for a loop. Wednesday apparently wanted to reclaim her crown as my supreme harasser, as I haven’t had a Wednesday like this in a long while. I don’t know if her and Tuesday are in cahoots or if they have both just decided to do their damnedest to take me out, but it looks like I cannot let my guard down ever. Next thing I know, Thursday will jump in on the dog pile too. I MUST BE PREPARED.

Also, my co-workers seem to be in on this mess, too. I don’t know if it’s the end of the year lethargy or what, but suddenly they all seem to have forgotten how to do their jobs, even the ones who are usually pretty good at sticking to deadlines, and so I’ve been working crazy hours to compensate. And then I’ve been sleeping in all my free time to try and make up all that lost energy.

I CAN NO LONGER STAND ALONE AGAINST ALL THESE FOES. I need allies. But who would stand with me, when my opponents are so great?

I know in my last post about Wednesday, it looked as though I was throwing in the towel. But fear not! I was merely lulling Wednesday into a false idea of victory in order to give her a beating similar to the one she gave me that day.

I am pleased to report that two weeks running, I have slain the beast that is Wednesday. She has lost her allies to my cunning maneuvering, and now she must face me alone. And I must say, without her posse, she is not so formidable. I think she let herself get complacent, believing Tuesday or Thursday would always be there to back her up or even fight for her, but she was mistaken. I have no doubt that she’ll rally and strike again, but for now I will enjoy my back-to-back victories.

However, I cannot let myself be tricked into thinking every week will be this easy. I must never forget that Wednesday and I are locked in an epic battle that may never end. Bring it on, Wednesday. Bring it on.